Early Season 7 AU, Spike and Xander are together, but Xander’s
still got things on his mind…

“Do you ever think about girls?”

Xander’s voice was
just a mumble against the back of his neck, but in the dark quiet around them, Spike heard every word clearly.

“Think
about the girls? Yeah,” Spike said slowly, frowning as he shifted against Xander, trying to get his backrest to be more
of the warm human variety and less of the scratchy couch. “Worry about Dawn…wonder what the bloody hell Buffy’s
thinking sometimes…try to imagine where Dru is – try not to imagine what she’s doing…”

“No,
not like that,” Xander said, his arms tightening around Spike, his hands wandering restlessly over skin that glowed
red, yellow and green in the tree lights. “Do you ever think about girls? You know…remember, or uh, fantasize…”

Spike
grew still, feeling the slight tremor in Xander’s hand as it smoothed over his ribs; fingers mindless as they followed
the same path up and then traced it back down. “When I’m with you, you mean?” he asked, his voice low and
guarded.

“When you’re with me…or alone,” Xander answered carefully.

Spike relaxed against
him, rolling his eyes a bit. “Never think about anyone when I’m with you – except you.” He grinned
slightly. “Or me. Depends on what we’re doing.” He grinned wider at Xander’s snorting laugh and then
turned his head, frowning. “Why? Do you?”

Xander shrugged. “Not when I’m with
you,” he said, his hands slipping higher, his palms brushing against Spike’s nipples and earning him a slight
shudder. He closed his hands around Spike’s chest, fingers mapping flat planes, firm muscles. “Just sometimes,
I miss, you know…boobies.”

Spike twisted away from him, his body arching as he leaned back on his hands,
glaring up at Xander.

Xander swallowed as he watched the arc and curve of Spike’s body as it moved, the lights
playing against the shifting muscles. “Although not very often,” he said quickly.

Spike’s hand fumbled
for the jeans they’d kicked beneath the coffee table earlier in the evening. Xander reached out to stay him, but Spike
shook him off, retrieving his cigarettes and lighter and leaning back against the couch again to light up.

He inhaled
deeply and then picked a piece of tobacco off his lower lip, looking down at it as he spoke. “What’s brought on
this bit of girlie nostalgia, Xander? Seeing Anya again tonight?”

“No,” Xander said forcefully,
and then realized his answer had been too forceful, too quick. He closed his eyes, his head dropping back against the sofa
as he sighed. He’d meant that to be a lighthearted question, but he should have realized that Spike didn’t know
from lighthearted and that Spike looked for hidden meaning in every freaking thing he said.

“No,” he said
again, quietly, lifting his head and looking at Spike. “I just meant…” he sat up, wrapping his arms around
his bare legs. “Okay, you know I never pulled the ladies like you did,” he waved a hand at the eyebrow lift that
statement earned, “all right, pulled, maybe. But kept? Uh-uh. Yeah, I had a few…moments. Cordy, Faith, Anya, Willow…”

“You
never ‘had’ Willow,” Spike interrupted, exhaling.

Xander waved the waft of smoke out of his eyes
and glared. “Full body press? No. But there were naughty touches aplenty, O he who thinks he knows all. Blame your lack
of memory on ‘evil Spike’ denial all you want, but you did lock us up in a warehouse with all the sexy,
dim candlelight; me on the bed, bleeding but brave, and Willow all guilt-ridden and longing and…”

“Nothing
happened,” Spike said, turning and lying back on the carpet, his hand resting on his chest between drags, his face inches
from Xander’s body.

“You don’t know,” Xander said sullenly, drawing his legs farther away
from Spike. “If we hadn’t gotten rescued, who knows what would have happened? We could have…”

“Snogged
for a bit, felt really bad about it, sat there and held hands and talked about much you cherished your soddin' friendship
until I showed up to kill you.” Spike took another drag and shook his head. “Willow doesn’t count.”

Xander rested his cheek on his arms, thinking back to Willow lying pale and still in that hospital bed after Dru’s
sneak attack and the way he had felt then that had led to all the naughty touching and secret kisses. “No,” he
said quietly, shaking his head, “Willow counts.”

“Fine,” Spike said, looking around for something
to ash in, finding a half-full wine bottle and ignoring Xander’s sigh of disgust. “’M just sayin’
I don’t sense that from you and Red.”

“Maybe because it was a long time and a few identity changes
ago? Even vamp senses can’t smell memories, Spike,” Xander said, irritated and sorry he’d ever brought
this up.

“Not talking about trying to catch a whiff of you on her, Xander,” Spike said, scooting closer
even as Xander tried to edge farther away. “I’m talking about sensing things between you…that charge between
people that have had a, what’d you call it? Moment?” He folded an arm behind his head, smoking lazily. “Now
Angel and the Slayer…that’s sensing something. There’s tortured romance for you…all longing
looks and half-spoken wants neither one of them has the stones to own up to.” He shook his head. “Just saying
I never got that with you and Red, that’s all.”

“Well, since I have a very limited history of tortured
romances, present company way excluded,” Xander said, shoving Spike away with his foot, “Willow makes the
cut.”

“Right then,” Spike said, wrapping his hand around Xander’s ankle and holding the foot
still, “Willow…Cheerleader…hold on,” he said, his hand sliding thoughtfully up Xander’s calf
in a slow caress, “thought you said Psycho Slayer was your first.” He grinned, his fingers playing against the
inside of Xander’s knee. “Still waiting to hear all the details of that…see if they live up to the
things I’ve imagined.”

Xander’s leg jerked beneath Spike’s hand. “Faith was the first…first,”
he said, gasping a little as Spike’s fingers trailed higher. He reached down and held Spike’s hand against his
thigh, stilling the searching fingers. “Cordy was the first…anything. We may not have made it that far but,”
his eyes darkened with memory and his grin was a little wicked. “Oh yeah, Cordy definitely counts.”

“How is it that you can
take one of the most profound experiences of my young life and spit it out in the most disgusting, juvenile…?”
Xander shook his head. “And you used to be a poet?”

Spike turned on his side, freeing his hand
and brushing the back of it against Xander’s thigh, his groin. “Upon yon cock did her glistening lips wrap,”
he said, his voice smoky and deep, “and teeth did play and tongue did…lap,” Spike laughed at Xander’s
groan and drew his hand away.

“Right,” Spike said, leaning back against Xander legs and sighing impatiently.
“Willow, the cheerleader, the dark-haired Slayer, and Anya. What’s the point, Xander? Missing one of them tonight?
All of them? Feel like you’re missing out on something?”

“No,” Xander said, looking down at
Spike, his face serious and dark in the soft lights of the tree and candles. “It’s just that’s all there
was, before you. And I don’t need anything more, not really, ’cause they’re all just memories, and none
of them meant…,” he turned his head, looking away. “It’s just that you’ve said that this, with
us, is…forever,” he swallowed, “whatever that means, and I don’t know that I’ll be enough, because
that’s all there is, all I’ve done, and compared to you, I don’t have…”

“No,” Spike said
quietly, drawing Xander’s hand down to his chest and covering it with his own. “Four.”

Xander
stared down at him, a slight frown on his face, and Spike raised his hand, counting slowly. “Drusilla.” He lifted
a finger. “Harmony,” he raised another finger, frowning, and muttering, “and suddenly wishing it was three.”
He raised a third finger. “Buffy.” He paused for a moment and then lifted a fourth. “Anya.”

“No
way.”

Spike smiled slightly. “Gotta remember, love, grew up in a different time than you. All boys’
school, responsibilities after, and vampire not long after that. Four.”

Xander groaned,
his head falling back. “Yes, because the less I hear of his name while naked, the better.”

Spike
smothered a smirk and continued, “So…four. Dru was my first…forever, until eternal lost meaning for her.
Harm,” he sighed, shaking his head, “I was really drunk, for a very long time?” Xander grinned, nodding.
“Buffy.” Spike licked his lips in the silence that followed. “That’s been dead, buried, resurrected
and staked, Xander, right? So if that’s what this…” Xander shook his head and Spike nodded, continuing,
“And Anyanka, again, drunk, and I’ve soddin’ apologized for it and…”

“And you’ve
been forgiven. Oh, hell,” Xander said, shaking his head, “not even forgiven, because that was all me, anyway.”

“Wish
it had been, love,” Spike said. Xander said nothing, just leaned back, easing Spike against his chest, arms wrapping
around him again as they had been before this walk through mistakes and…moments past had begun. “So. Eight, between
us,” Spike said, chuckling.

“Seven, technically,” Xander corrected. “We’re counting
Anya twice.”

Spike shrugged. “You say Anya, I say Anyanka. Two very different sets of events.” He
ran a finger thoughtfully down Xander’s thigh. “Eight pretty maids, all in a row.”

Xander titled
his head, looking up at the Christmas tree that twinkled above them. “This time of year, I think that’d be eight
maids, uh, milking,” he snickered.

Spike grinned and then lifted his head to look at Xander. “Wasn’t
meant to be any of them,” he said, meeting Xander’s eyes. “Don’t want you to think – ever –
that you won’t be enough. Know you, pet, this wasn’t about what you’re missing, or think you are, but what
you’re afraid I want. Wanted that then…want you now. Now, for as long as ‘now’ turns out to be, yeah?”
He drew Xander’s head down, kissing him slowly, twisting and turning and until they faced each other, bodies pressed
together, brushing soft and then harsh.

Spike lifted his head, his hands sliding down to clench around Xander’s
hips. “Still thinking about maids?” he asked as he pressed his lips against Xander’s throat.

“I
think you can feel the answer to that,” Xander groaned.

“Mmm,” Spike sighed as he slid his body slowly
down the length of Xander’s, his tongue tracing a path in his wake, “don’t want you to feel like you’re
missing anything…”

“Well,” Xander gasped as Spike’s lips brushed cool over his stomach,
“we could make a new tradition: every Christmas, you could remind me of what I’m not missing…”

“Why
wait for Christmas, love?” Spike grinned and then his head lowered and Xander closed his eyes, surrendering to the…moment.

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